Is Michael Jordan the best athlete of all time?

Most people don't mention this but young Jordan was super quick and fast as hell when he came into the NBA. Beatings from the Pistons and other teams forced him to put on more muscle and thus he lost some of that speed and quickness. Anyways i think Jordan could have run a 10.7 in the 100m in his early years. I mean i seen lesser athletes than him run 10.7 in the 100. Also his vertical leap was about 3 and a half feet. The guy was a beast of an athlete and he definitely gets my vote.

Umm, almost definitely not. I am just a numbers guy here.

When you look at "body of work", Bo Jackson has to be up there. Go look at the highlight reel. Extremely powerful, agile, quick accelerating and high end speed. Then throw in excellent coordination and one hell of an arm.

You want 90 yard touchdown run? Got it. How about a 450 foot homerun to center field. Check. Throwing out a guy from left field, flat footed. Yep. Spectacular catches in the outfield or robbing homeruns. Got those too.

Oh, and being an all-star in two major sports at the same time.

If he had been a decathlete, would have been the greatest of all time. Probably was a world class sprinter had he concentrated on it. But could hit a 100 mph fastball 400 feet as well.

notevenacrack wrote:

Strength, endurance, agility.

DRIVE, passion, perform under pressure, elevate those around you to win.

No, not even close.

Heck I would argue that Lebron is a better basketball player. Lebron was a pretty good football player in HS. Jordan was a mediocre minor league baseball player who only got that chance because he was Michael Jordan.

I'm in the Jim Thorpe camp in terms of greatest athlete of all time (barring some ancient Greek or Roman).

Oh Please wrote:

When you look at "body of work", Bo Jackson has to be up there. Go look at the highlight reel. Extremely powerful, agile, quick accelerating and high end speed. Then throw in excellent coordination and one hell of an arm.

You want 90 yard touchdown run? Got it. How about a 450 foot homerun to center field. Check. Throwing out a guy from left field, flat footed. Yep. Spectacular catches in the outfield or robbing homeruns. Got those too.

Oh, and being an all-star in two major sports at the same time.

If he had been a decathlete, would have been the greatest of all time. Probably was a world class sprinter had he concentrated on it. But could hit a 100 mph fastball 400 feet as well.

He was a decathlete in HS. Stories are that he would accumulate enough points before the 1500m run that he would just not do it.

Yeah, I would consider him. Still going with Jim Thorpe. though.

I'm from the UK and I can't name one current American football and baseball player. And, I'm a sports fan.

I do have some ideas.

Does it have to be a black athlete that you choose? Are you allowed to choose from other races? Is this for blm?

DontFeedTheTroll wrote:

My usual answers to "best athlete of all time" are Jim Thorpe and Babe Didrikson.

You may have better answers, but it's really tough to argue against either one of these.

Good calls.

I'm going to add Bo Jackson to that. If he had been in the same era as Thorpe, what would he have done in the pentathlon and decathlon? Hard to know but would have been something to see.

Wilt Chamberlain was a tremendous athlete, besides being the dominant offensive basketball player of his time, he was very good in T&F in the 1950's - sub 50, sub 2:00, high 50s (ft) shot put, over 50 ft triple jump, Big 8 conference high jump champ 3 years in a row

MJ could probably go 28' in the long jump.

Babe Ruth was not an athlete. He was a drunk that found a way to take out his frustration on a baseball.

Only reason soccer is popular is because it only takes a ball to play.

Three myths:

No track athlete will ever be considered the best athlete in the world. So few pursue the sport to the highest level we get a small talent pool. Eaton is amazing, but if you took every football, basketball, soccer player worldwide and trained them in decathlon from a young age that WR would be shattered.

No athlete before the 1970s will ever be considered the best athlete in the world. The science and competition just wasnt there. Babe Ruths competition was maybe equivalent to single A ball players today, and that is generous.

Lebron James is a better athlete than Jordan. So no for michael jordan.

FastTuohy wrote:

Wilt Chamberlain was a tremendous athlete, besides being the dominant offensive basketball player of his time, he was very good in T&F in the 1950's - sub 50, sub 2:00, high 50s (ft) shot put, over 50 ft triple jump, Big 8 conference high jump champ 3 years in a row

Yeah Wilt is the correct answer. In addition to the above:

- Arnold S (Mr Universe ) called him one of the strongest human being he'd ever seen.

- He killed a mountain lion with his bare hands.

- He picked up pro volleyball at age 34

It is true that people are fanatic about basketball only in the US. Other countries have basketball leagues but its not taken as seriously in the US. Many just have half ass leagues and most people are not that interested in basketball in those countries. It's Americans like the ones in this thread who would actually think a basketball player could be the GREATEST ATHLETE IN THE WORLD. Thats thanks to ESPN moulding minds that way.

I like the argument that the best are going to go to the sport with money. Sure, then soccer players and baseball players would be at the top of everyones lists as far as greatest athlete. How about the world heavyweight boxing champ? The tennis players? Some hockey players are making more than basketball players.

I would agree Jordan would likely not be in the top 100 actual greatest athletes but he would make the top 100 in the most paid list of athletes for being the greatest or one of the greatest basketball players. A bouncy ball game with a tiny wooden court and a couple of small baskets on either end.

Jim Thorpe is a poor answer. According to his obituary in The New York Times, he could run the 100-yard dash in 10 seconds flat; the 220 in 21.8 seconds; the 440 in 51.8 seconds; the 880 in 1:57, the mile in 4:35; the 120-yard high hurdles in 15 seconds; and the 220-yard low hurdles in 24 seconds.[7] He could long jump 23 ft 6 in and high-jump 6 ft 5 in.[7] He could pole vault 11 feet; put the shot 47 ft 9 in; throw the javelin 163 feet; and throw the discus 136 feet.[7]

Most average collegiate decathletes today would destroy Thorpe. Football back then was a joke too.

Is you and others can please stop making threads like this??

notevenacrack wrote:

Strength, endurance, agility.

DRIVE, passion, perform under pressure, elevate those around you to win.

Basketball in other countries is a lower contested sport than men's soccer in the United States. So we're assuming that the best athlete ever in the world is an American, since only Americans take basketball seriously.

Like someone else said, there's this thing called the decathlon. Track and Field is a world-wide sport, it may not be the top sport in many countries, but every sport has it and recognizes it as a legitimate sport. Kevin Mayer beat Ashton Eaton's world record the next year after Ashton Eaton set his PR at 2016 Rio olympics. So if you say Ashton Eaton was the best, you've got to admit that Kevin Mayer at his peak was/is better. Across the pond they call Track and Field 'Athletics', because that's what it is, it's athletics. Most other sports involve some sort expertise like accuracy throwing a ball or accuracy making contact with a ball. But athletics is speed, strength, explosiveness, endurance. That's what the decathlon is. The best decathlete could play nearly any sport and be decent at it. But you take someone from some other sport that required a particular skill and they might be terrible at most other things.

I'm taking LeBron over Bo Jackson and Dieon Sanders. Honorable mention to VA boys Mike Vick and Allen Iverson.

He's probably the GOAT ball-sport athlete if you're factoring individual and team success along with pure athleticism.

But "GOAT athlete" is almost a worthless category because comparing team sports against individual and/or purely athletic sports is like, well, comparing apples and oranges.

I do think that MJ could have probably been an elite 400m runner in his prime, and maybe made the Oly team for long jump.

Basketball players are not the most athletic, at all. They are just tall. In other words. Take any sport that doesn't require height, and you don't see 6'9 players dominate or the average height of the player being a freak cause they don't have the skill or athletic ability that regular sized people have.

Soccer is disqualified as you can't even use your hands.

Track is good but is too specialized. Not enough data points to say a great sprinter is skilled or has endurance.

I would say Federer or Nadal or Joker cause there isn't a sport on earth that requires the combination of skill, mental strength, endurance, physical strength, quickness and ability that tennis does.

And you can be 5'9 or 6'6 and be a top player in tennis. Basketball can't do that. Which means literally anyone can be a pro. And there are millions of players every year that play. Far more than other sports (3rd most popular sport on planet).